Articles for tag: Freedom

November 1, 2009

Christian Standard

Why I Write Books

  by Arron Chambers I”m often asked how I became an author. I never planned on being an author. I liked to write but never thought anyone””besides my Mom and my 10th-grade English literature teacher, Mrs. Beardall””would ever read anything I”d ever written. But that all changed over lunch with my friend Ben. I”d had the privilege of baptizing Ben back in January 2004. Immediately after his baptism we began meeting every other week for discipleship, fellowship, and to celebrate what God was doing in his life. Ben is a very talented man who””at the time””was writing a book. Over

October 25, 2009

Christian Standard

Frankly Speaking

  by Ben Simms Some Ohio State University students thrive on hot dogs as they hang out in the early morning hours on High Street in Columbus. For several years now, Student Christian Fellowship has been giving away free frankfurters at what it calls FFF (short for “Free FrankFurters”).   More than Hot Dogs Christian minister Steve Sjogren says, “Small things done with great love will change the world.” This is really the point of free frankfurter night. The hope is that, at some point in a student”s life at OSU, getting a free hot dog will trigger a conversation

September 6, 2009

Christian Standard

Waiting to Go to Heaven

  by Ethan Magness I”ve recently developed an eagerness to go to Heaven. To my great surprise, I have begun to live actively hoping for my future in God”s kingdom. To clarify, it isn”t that I ever wanted to avoid Heaven. I wanted to go to Heaven someday, but I just wasn”t excited about it. I certainly didn”t want to go to Hell, and since the alternative was Heaven, I was glad to know where I going. I had some vague religious notion I ought to look forward to Heaven, but I wasn”t worried about my disinterest””in fact, I wasn”t

August 23, 2009

Christian Standard

To the Best of My Ability

  by Glen Elliott We are a people obsessed with success. We long for A”s in the classroom and the bonus or promotion at work. We want to be a starter on the team. Yet, the reality of the very system we live in is that we can”t all get A”s (that”s called grade inflation). Not everyone can get a bonus or promotion, and not everyone gets to start. The normal response to this reality is we encourage folks to just “do the best you can.” It sounds good. I like it. While most of us accept this as conventional

July 26, 2009

Christian Standard

A Place of Quiet Rest

By Kelly Kastens In the fall of 2004 we moved into a long-awaited, brand-new worship center. It was an awesome time in the life of our church. And, for a while, it was an awesome time in my life. As worship programming director, I was insanely busy, but it was fun and it felt like we were doing something that mattered. God was showing up every week and new people were showing up every week and life change was happening. While all these good things were going on, I was getting busier and busier. There was always more to do,

June 21, 2009

Christian Standard

How to Listen to a Sermon

By Brian Mavis SHARE THIS ARTICLE WITH EVERYONE IN YOUR CHURCH. (DETAILS BELOW.)       One hundred times more people will hear a sermon this week than preach one. So why are there thousands of articles, books, and classes on how to preach a message, but virtually none on how to listen to one? It”s because most people think listening just comes naturally. But that”s not what Jesus thought. Jesus said to “consider carefully how you listen” (Luke 8:18). The state and fate of your life depends on how you listen. Teachers are responsible for teaching well, but you

June 21, 2009

Christian Standard

Finding Your Focus

  By Glen Elliott   n the 2008 movie Yes Man, the main character (Jim Carrey) functions like a modern-day hermit until he is challenged to begin saying “yes” to everything. It works out well for him, for the most part, until the end when he realizes he can”t really say “yes” to everything. While it is risky to say “yes” all the time, it takes more courage and wisdom to know when to say “no.” For years our church held an annual Pumpkin Patch event (a safe Halloween alternative) that drew several thousand folks. It was a huge success in terms

June 14, 2009

Christian Standard

FROM MY BOOKSHELF: Learning to Communicate, Examining History

By LeRoy Lawson Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (Orlando: Harvest, 2005). Temple Grandin is autistic and a shatterer of stereotypes. She”s not retarded; she holds a PhD in animal science. She”s not dependent on others to take care of her. She lives alone, is one of the country”s leading consultants in animal behavior, and she”s an amazingly productive author of hundreds of articles, many books, and dozens of lectures a year. So much for stereotypes. AHA! MOMENTS I wish I could have read her Animals in Translation years

May 10, 2009

Christian Standard

A Christian Civics Lesson

  By Rod Roberts On January 9, 2007, the newly elected speaker of the Iowa House gaveled the 82nd General Assembly into session. True to the traditions of the Iowa House, the speaker invited a special guest pastor to bring the invocation that morning. To the surprise of many, the guest invited to pray for the General Assembly was a Des Moines-area Muslim imam. The gesture was, in part, recognition of the election of Iowa”s first Muslim state legislator, who was from Des Moines. In fact, the state Capitol in Des Moines is located in this legislator”s district. The imam

November 2, 2008

Christian Standard

Beyond Tweaking the Code

By Jason Rodenbeck When I started preaching at Castle Christian Church in Cumming, Georgia, I began podcasting our sermons. It is not especially difficult, but it requires learning a special code. If even one character is entered incorrectly, the podcast doesn”t work. But, fortunately, one little tweak to the source code often fixes the problem. Sometimes we look at the teaching of Jesus Christ that way””especially people caught up in what I call “the religion that passes for Christianity.” In that religion, we believe Jesus came to offer a cure for the ills of society and salvation from what really

October 26, 2008

Christian Standard

Sin Among the Shepherds

By Name Withheld   In a perfect world there would be no articles like this. The leaders in our churches would be solid, stable, and blameless. You wouldn”t need the testimony “of a leader who failed.” And I wouldn”t be that leader. In a serious understatement, I was asked to describe for you “what happens when a shepherd “˜stubs his toe” and it is handled well by the church.” I was asked because I am that shepherd, but I didn”t feel I had “stubbed my toe”””it felt like I had cut off my legs. While the elders of my church know

August 31, 2008

Christian Standard

Everyone Connected: Relational Strategies to Get Your Whole Church Involved

By Michael C. Mack Two of the most common questions I hear church leaders ask is, “How do we connect people? What is the best method for assimilation?” I”ve given those questions a lot of thought and study, and I have been frustrated trying to figure out what methods the early church used to assimilate the 3,000 believers baptized on the Day of Pentecost (as well as all those who continued to be added to the church). We know what their values were and some of what they did together. We know they met in homes and the temple courts.

May 4, 2008

Christian Standard

The Biblical Basis for Externally Focused Ministry

By Eric Swanson If you look long enough, you can find a “biblical basis” for almost anything. That”s what my friends and I discovered years ago when I was in college. We entertained ourselves by finding obscure passages to justify a wide and wild set of behaviors. (All of these are from the New American Standard Bible, my version of choice back then): “¢ Not wearing sweatshirts: “They shall not gird themselves with anything which makes them sweat” (Ezekiel 44:18). “¢ Sleeping in church: “I heard the sound of his words; and as soon as I heard the sound of

April 27, 2008

Christian Standard

Engaging the University

By Buzz Roberts What is going through the minds of today”s college students? What motivates them? What has been their experience with the church and fellow Christians? If we could hear their thoughts, what would they reveal? In recent conversations with collegians about God, Jesus, and Christianity, I heard the following: – “Jesus was a good person.” — “I don”t believe in God.” — “I”m not sure if God exists.” — “Christians are hypocrites.” — “I”ve had a bad church experience””I”m not going back.” David Kinnemen and Gabe Lyons share insight into the hearts and minds of students in their new

March 9, 2008

Christian Standard

Confidentiality: Always Helpful or Not?

By Tim Woodroof and Leland Vickers You are serving as an elder (or minister, volunteer leader, Bible class teacher, or pastor) for your local congregation and you are approached on Sunday by a longtime member””let”s call her Susan””who says she would like to talk with you about a “personal problem.” You agree to meet her for coffee, but Susan prefaces her discussion with a request, “This must stay only between the two of us. Can we agree that our discussion be completely confidential?” What is your response? The current church culture leads people to assume they have the right to

January 2, 2008

Christian Standard

Interview with Lynn Anderson

By Brad Dupray Lynn Anderson is one of the most respected authorities on church eldership, not just in the Restoration Movement, but in the evangelical world. His books They Smell Like Sheep and They Smell Like Sheep, Volume 2, have become standard references for those studying the eldership. His real-world experience came from more than 30 years as a senior minister in British Columbia and Texas. Lynn earned a DMin from Abilene (Texas) Christian University and has earned graduate and postgraduate degrees in communication and Bible. He has served as an adjunct professor at ACU for 26 years. Eleven years

October 28, 2007

Christian Standard

How Should We Celebrate?

By Bob Russell About These Articles This article and its companion, “How Should We Celebrate?,” are excerpted fromBob Russell”s closing sermon at the North American Christian Convention in Kansas City, July 6. Bob reviewed the biblical examples of celebrating what God has done, and then he highlighted some of what God is doing among us today.     First, celebrate the past but don”t dwell on the past. Over the years I watched a number of people become a part of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville who would say, “This is a breath of fresh air. I dropped out of church because it

July 15, 2007

Christian Standard

TRANSITIONS: Lesson I”ve Learned This Past Year

By Dave Stone My favorite name to describe the fellowship of Christian churches and churches of Christ is “brotherhood.” The term implies a closeness and that we are a family. There are so many great churches within it, and I”m fortunate to serve one of them””Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. She gets more than her share of attention within our brotherhood. Maybe it”s her size, or perhaps it”s because of Bob Russell”s longevity and credibility. In 2006 we went through a transition of leadership, from Bob to me. Never have I seen a senior minister do it with such

June 20, 2007

Christian Standard

Interview with Eleanor Daniel

By Brad Dupray If there is a “dean of Christian education” in the Christian church, it is Eleanor Daniel. In a career spanning nearly five decades, Eleanor has served as either staff member or Christian education consultant to dozens of churches across the United States, taught in mission stations around the world, written five books on Christian education, taught Christian education on the graduate and postgraduate level, and served as dean at both Cincinnati Christian University and Emmanuel School of Religion. A graduate of Lincoln Christian College and Seminary, she currently teaches at Emmanuel and serves part-time as adult education

June 3, 2007

Christian Standard

Are You Physically at Your Peak?

By Stephen Bond After a yearlong season of conflict, in March 1998 I resigned from my ministry in Wisconsin. I spent the next three months seeking God”s direction before accepting a call to move to Nevada to begin Summit Christian Church. Our family moved in July 1998. Then we took another three months to decompress. We”d been through a tumultuous year and we desperately needed rest. After we caught our breath, I began to process what life lessons God was trying to teach me through that difficult time. I”ve often said the only thing worse than going through a difficult

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